by Sarah Hegger
“My wife.” Oliver nearly yelled the word. “Laura is my wife who I brought back with me. Laura this is my mother, Elewys.”
Had he lost his mind for sure this time? “I am not—”
“Laura is shy.” Oliver threw his arm around her shoulder and gripped. “We have not long been married.”
With a scowl, Elewys examined Laura from top to toe. “Is she breeding?”
Now that was just plain rude. “I am not breeding.”
“Nay, Mother.” Oliver hauled her against him, nearly cutting off her breathing. “I saw her and knew I could not live without her.”
“Why is she dressed like that?” Sniffing, Elewys fingered Laura’s hoodie. “She looks like a stupid, witless boy.”
The wife thing, they would address, but for now she would let it lie. Along with the revenge thing. This woman had Laura’s hackles up. “I am dressed appropriately for my time.” She gave Elewys the same derisive eye scan. “In fact, in my time, we would say you were dressed like a mad hag.”
Elewys’s mouth dropped open.
Clenching her shoulder, Oliver let out a loud, fake laugh that made her want to hit him. She stood on his foot and pressed down until he stopped.
Elewys crossed her arms. Short and rather stout, she looked nothing like Oliver with her pale sharky blue eyes. “And what time is that?”
“Twenty-sixteen.” Laura didn’t bother to hide the smirk. Let the old bag put that in her pipe and smoke it.
“Huh.” On a nod, Elewys shuffled around them to the fire. “Did you start our meal?”
“Nay.” Oliver kept a firm grip on her. “We only arrived a short while ago.”
“Does she cook?” Elewys jerked her head at Laura.
With her biggest smile smacked on her face, Laura said, “No, she does not.”
“Then she cleans.” Elewys put her hands on her hips.
“Not if I can help it,” Laura said.
“Then why.” Frowning, Elewys shook her head. “Why would you marry such a useless woman?”
Oh, boy! Eight hundred years of female emancipation shimmered in the air between Laura and her “mother-in-law”. She wrapped her arms around Oliver’s waist and leered. “I have other talents.”
“Trull!” Elewys spat.
Laura looked at the spot of spittle near the hearth and shuddered. She could forget eating anything cooked in there.
From a keg tucked in one corner, Elewys dragged out some desiccated strips of something meat-like. She tossed Laura a reproachful glare and stomped around the kitchen area. Potatoes, onions and celery joined the meat.
“I will need more wood.” Elewys sawed at the meat strips. “And some of the carrots I picked yesterday. Also bay leaves and parsley.”
“I’ll get them,” Oliver said.
No way did Laura want to stay in here with this woman. “I’ll come with you.”
“You stay.” Elewys jabbed the knife at her. “We needs speak.”
Laura crept closer to Oliver.
“Stay,” Oliver whispered. “She will not stop until she speaks with you.”
“Will I survive?” Laura did not like the way Elewys wielded that large knife.
Oliver grinned and winked at her. “Probably.”
He shut the cottage door behind him and Arrow.
The evil orange cat blinked at her from across the room. At the hearth, Elewys attacked a small pile of potatoes. “So,” she said, scattering peelings across the table. “You do not cook or clean. What is it you do in this twenty-sixteen of yours?”
That might take some explaining so Laura pared it down. “I am a healer, of sorts. A mind healer.”
Elewys stared at her, then grunted and dropped her potato pieces into a wooden bowl of water. “Are minds so broken in your time that they need healing?”
Laura shrugged, not wanting to touch that one either. “Can I help you?”
“Can you peel?”
“I can learn.”
Elewys pushed the pile of potatoes and a small knife closer. “Take off the skin without losing too much of the flesh and then cut them into pieces.”
Were they bonding here? Oh, joy!
Elewys pounded something white and blobby. She was making bread.
Laura stopped peeling and watched the process.
“How long have you and my son been married?”
“Not long at all.” Close enough to the truth. “Very recently, in fact.” So recent as in not at all. She didn’t understand Oliver’s hasty declaration, but he understood his world better than she did and she had to believe he had a reason.
Elewys patted the dough into a football shape and placed it on a wooden paddle, then she shoved the paddle into a small opening in the bricks beneath the fire.
“My son needs a good woman,” Elewys said. “Someone to make a home for him.”
Presented with the opportunity to unravel the mystery of Oliver, Laura made an encouraging noise.
“He has not had an easy life. Neither have I.” Elewys wiped her hands on her apron. “I have done what I can for him, but his father has cast him aside.”
“Cast aside?” Ears wide open, Laura kept her gaze on her peeling.
Elewys paused for effect. “Oliver is a bastard.”
“Uh-huh.”
“A bastard whose father refuses to acknowledge him.” Movements sharp and jerky, Elewys added celery and what might be turnips to a large black pot.
Laura’s therapist antenna pinged. “How did that make you feel?”
As if nobody had ever asked her that question, Elewys blinked at her. “I feel nothing for William de Wolfe.” There she went with the spitting again, and Laura winced. At least the fire was busy sanitizing the bread. “The cur rutted on me fast enough. Forced himself on me. Got me with child and left.”
“He knew about the baby?” A few well-placed questions and you could get most people to open up. Other than Oliver. He seemed to have cottoned on to the game frighteningly fast.
“I told him. I took his son to him as soon as I could rise from my birthing bed. A good lad, strong and sure.” Slam went the knife as Elewys hacked through an onion. “He threw me out of the castle.” Slam. “Refused to see me.” Slam. Hack. Slam. “Would not even hear my name spoken.”
“He had someone throw you out the castle?” Laura kept an eye on the knife.
“Nay.” Elewys speared the coals in the hearth. Sparks flew and the coals flared bright orange. “He twisted my arm, and threw me from the castle. I held Oliver to my breast so he would not be thrown to the ground and die.”
“Ah.” Either de Wolfe had refused to see her or manhandled her. Time to dig a little deeper. “So you took Oliver to his father and he refused to see you?”
With a start, Elewys yanked her pot over to the hearth. “At first. He refused to see me at first. Then as I would not be turned aside, one of his men took me to him. Big, handsome fellow but colder than the north wind.”
“What happened next?”
“He refused to look at his child. Refused to even acknowledge we had lain together.”
“De Wolfe refused?”
“Did I just not say so?” Elewys scowled.
“Sorry.” Laura managed a neutral smile. “I am only trying to understand.”
“Then understand this.” Hands on the table, Elewys got right into Laura’s face. “De Wolfe tried to kill his own son. Oliver and I have hidden for years from that man. Hidden until Oliver was strong enough to exact his own justice.”
“De Wolfe tried to kill Oliver?”
“He chased me down.”
“Once you had been cast from the castle?”
“Aye.” The glitter in Elewys’s eyes hardened. “He climbed on that huge horse of his and chased us down. I ran for my life and the life of my child, but he kept coming. De Wolfe’s sword was raised, thirsty for blood as he pursued us. I escaped him.” Elewys turned back to the hearth. “I hid all night in the forest, protecting my weak babe from wild anima
ls and driving rain. In the morn, while de Wolfe slept, I sneaked away with Oliver, and kept us hidden until the time came.”
Laura could drive a truck through the holes in this story, and that disquieting fervor lighting up Elewys made her professional instincts snap, crackle and pop. Oliver might be perfectly sane, but Mama? Not so much. “What does de Wolfe look like?”
“The devil.” More spitting, and really. Food preparation, basic hygiene? “Dark hair forged in the fires of hell. Eyes of wicked gold that see in the dark.”
“Gold eyes.” Hazel eyes maybe? A pale hazel?
Elewys had a lot more to say about devil eyes, some of it rather poetic, all of it batshit crazy. What the hell was Oliver doing out there? She cut across more Satan-spiel. “How old is Oliver?”
Elewys scowled. “Old enough to have a wife.”
Damn. If Oliver’s level of education when he arrived was anything to go by, Elewys probably couldn’t count.
The door opened and Oliver came in with his arms full of wood. Hair ruffled by the wind, he looked strong and capable. Given that he hadn’t manufactured all of this in his mind, she didn’t feel quite so bad about her inappropriate urges.
Oliver caught her staring and raised his eyebrow.
Laura shrugged. She had no idea where to start.
7
Medieval sleeping arrangements left Laura a lot twitchy.
With a smug smile, Elewys retreated to a blanket in front of the hearth. “You are married now, Oliver. You and your new wife needs take the bed. I will be happy right here.”
Dinner hadn’t been that bad. Fresh baked bread, and a meat stew packed full of fresh veggies, all washed down with more mead. Laura might become a fan of the mead. It made the bad parts go fuzzy round the edges.
The only bed in the house hulked in front of her and her mead buzz evaporated.
Silently laughing at her, Oliver stood on the other side. Prick. He hauled his tunic over his head.
Oh, my, he’d put his gym time at Deer Fallows to good use. Plus the wood chopping, stone hauling, soil tilling that must go on in this time. Ripped, cut, decadent and far too real.
He went for his belt.
Laura made a face at him and shook her head. Those stayed on or she wasn’t getting into the bed.
Elewys lay with her back to them.
Eyebrow raised in a silent question, he cocked his head.
“On,” Laura mouthed.
Grinning, he slid beneath the fur cover. He opened the other side for her and patted the bed with a smirk.
Removing her Nikes, her only concession, she slid in track pants, hoodie and all.
“You’ll get hot,” Oliver whispered.
The warm brush of his breath on her neck sent delicious shivers down her spine. “I’ll be fine.”
“Okay.” He lay back with his arms tucked beneath his head.
Outside, wind through tree branches replaced traffic noises. Crickets set up a constant buzz. She thought she heard an owl hoot. Something yelped and she started.
Oliver rolled closer to her. “It’s a fox.”
“Is it okay?”
His chuckle shook the bed as he shifted nearer and his body warmth wrapped around her. “It’s just barking to its young.”
“Too close.” She stuck her elbow out.
He retreated.
Sweat slid down her sides. They had real fur on this bed, and it heated up with them beneath the covers like an oven. She wriggled and managed to get her socks off.
Oliver huffed onto his back. His elbow bumped hers and he lifted his hips.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking my pants off.” After a bit more thrashing, he dropped them onto the floor beside the bed.
“Put them back on.” Laura edged away from a naked Oliver.
He rolled closer. “It’s how we sleep. Here.” He tugged at her hoodie. “You will boil in this, and you have something on beneath it.”
“I’m not getting naked.” She shoved his hands away, but she did have a T-shirt on under her hoodie, so she pulled it off and dropped it on the floor.
“Fine.” He put his mouth next to her ear. “But so you know, my mother will expect me to make love to my wife.”
“With her in the room?” Dear God, that was better than a cold shower.
He laughed. “We are not so precious in this time. We do not hide our natural desires behind closed doors and pretend they do not happen.”
“That is the most pathetic line to get lucky I’ve ever heard.” She elbowed him in the gut. “And what’s with the wife thing anyway.”
He shrugged. “This is a different time. Women do not travel on their own. We needed my mother to accept your presence here or she could make life very difficult for you.”
“She’s making it easy?”
“Come, Laura.” He hooked an arm around her waist and cradled her with his body. “Your virtue is safe with me.”
Laura wriggled. Her butt brushed his crotch and she froze. “That had better not be what I think it is.”
Oliver shook her with his quiet laugher. “Don’t think about it.”
Great idea, except not so easy to do with his erection pressed against her.
“As far as my mother knows, we are man and wife. If I shun you, so will she. Now lie still and pretend you like being in my arms.” His voice, pitched so low, wrapped them in a bubble of intimacy. “With all the noise we’re making, she probably thinks we’re making love anyway.”
Ugh! So creepy and so embarrassing. And, dammit, more than a little intriguing.
Oliver woke with the sun. Outside the casement, dawn spread pale orange and pink fingers into the sky.
In the night, Laura had curled into him and finally slept.
The door opened and Mother slipped into the morning to get water for breaking their fast.
Propping himself up, he allowed himself the luxury of studying the woman in his arms. In sleep, she lost the grim resolve her features had carried at the institution. She looked much younger with the corners of her mouth curled up into a smile. All things considered, she had taken the news of her changed circumstances rather well. He grinned when he remembered the confrontation between her and Mother yesterday. Dr. Laura Rose did not back away from a fight, it seems. Good, because that ability would be tested before they were done here.
He needed to return her to her time. If he trusted the sword’s magic more, he could simply pop her back and return, but the damn thing seemed to have a will of its own. He’d spent long hours in his future life trying to understand how he had ended up when he had. It had to do with the wish uttered. One, clearly, needed to be careful about the wording.
Laura muttered and stirred.
He smoothed flaxen hair back from her face. Like a wheat field, her hair held all the colors of gold and brown. They called them highlights. He’d seen it on the television, and wanted to tell her she needed no artifice to make her beautiful. To him she had always been beautiful, robbed him of coherent thought. Finally, he had her in his bed, the starting point of so many of his late night fantasies. His cock stirred.
Laura blinked her eyes open, frowned and stared about her. “So it’s real.”
“Aye.” It had taken him many mornings of waking in the future to accept the inevitable. So beautiful, her blue-green eyes clouded with confusion that he wanted to fix. Of course, his wooing of Doctor Rose might go better if she didn’t consider him completely around the bend. In a winning courtship combination, he’d followed insanity with a quick trip through time.
“You’re staring,” she said, her gaze fixed on the casement.
“I know.” He brushed the warm cream of her cheek. “You’re beautiful. I have always thought so.”
“Now you’re flirting again.” She sighed but didn’t move away from his touch.
He took that as a good sign. “Well, we are in bed together. I am naked. You have taken off part of your armor. It seemed like a good time.”
; “It’s not.” She turned and looked at him. “Because when we get out of this bed, we get out into ye olde England.” She heaved a sigh. “How did you do it? Get your head around what had happened to you.”
“I stopped fighting it.” He traced the delicate, firm line of her jawbone. Where her neck and shoulder met dwelled a sweet spot he ached to bury his face in and inhale the nectar of her. “I accepted the impossible. Sherlock Holmes said it best. He said; ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’”
“You read Sherlock Holmes?”
He shrugged. “Learning to read is one of my favorite things from your time. You have so much knowledge available to you. A world of learning and discovery just waiting for anyone with the will to take the journey.”
“And still we remain woefully ignorant.” She shook her head. “I’m getting maudlin. What’s the plan for the day?” She grimaced. “And as much as I know I’m going to hate the answer, I really need to know about the facilities.”
Boundaries. You needed to establish firm boundaries and stick with them. Even in the face of a scowling six-three, muscle-bound, sword-wielding man of old standing in his nasty cottage while his batcrap crazy mother bustled in and out. Laura stated her position calmly and assertively. “I am coming with you.”
“Nay, you are not.” He stepped closer to her.
Physical intimidation? Not so much. “Yes, I am, and we are wasting time standing here arguing. You are insisting that you need to get this revenge done before you can take me home. I want to go home. Even more so since visiting your long drop in the woods. Hence, I am entitled to witness this revenge mission.”
Legs braced for a storm, Oliver folded his arms. “You want to see me cut down William de Wolfe?”
“Not at all.” She needed to clarify. “I find the whole idea barbaric, but you are determined to do this. I am determined to talk you out of it.”
“Ah ha!” He jabbed a thick finger at her. “I knew it. You really want to come so you can stop me.”
“Exactly.” Laura motioned him toward the door. “You have a mission, I have a mission, and they both seem to meet at William de Wolfe. Let’s get on with it, so the next time I use the bathroom I can do so with two-ply and flushing.”
